Looking for alien lasers, not radios

NewScientist.com news service April 11, 2006

*************************

The first optical telescope
dedicated to the hunt for alien
signals, the Planetary Society's
Optical SETI (OSETI) telescope at
Harvard's Oak Ridge Observatory, has
opened. Once running, OSETI's
processors will carry out a trillion
measurements per second, in a
year-round survey of the sky. It
will be able to pick out flashes of
light that are...

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=5458&m=7610

Harvard's new telescope to boost search for alien life

Will scan heavens for flashes of light

By Douglas Belkin, Globe Staff | April 12, 2006

To quote:

Horowitz compared the previous generation of the Optical Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, or OSETI, to searching the skies through a soda straw -- viewing only a very narrow spot of the heavens at once. This telescope, built for about $400,000, scans a broad line in the sky.

As the Earth moves, the stars pass through that line. In about 200 nights the scope can observe the entire sky visible from the northern hemisphere.

The pace of observation: 100,000 times faster than any previous scope.

To analyze the massive amount of data being sucked in through the scope's 72-inch mirror, a team of graduate and undergraduate students built a computer able to wade through 1 trillion bits of information per second -- about as much information as is contained in every book in the Library of Congress.

''The technology is absolutely on the cutting edge," said Louis Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Society, a nonprofit group of scientists and space enthusiasts that funded the telescope. ''It feels like the Wright brothers working out of their bike shop; they're using chips never seen before."

Friedman compared building the scope to launching a space ship. The stakes, he said, could not be higher.

Full article here:

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/04/12/harvards_new_telescope_to_boost_search_for_alien_life/